Cristiano Ronaldo’s New Bust Will Give You Nightmares

Real Madrid soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo unveiled an airport named Aeroporto Cristiano Ronaldo in Madeira, Portugal. In addition to getting an airport named after himself, the footballer was honored with a bronze bust in his likeness. The artist, a local sculptor named Emanuel Santos, has spoken up about the much reviled statue, saying, basically, “you can’t win ’em all.”

“It is impossible to please the Greeks and Trojans. Neither did Jesus please everyone,” he said, according to The Guardian. “This is a matter of taste, so it is not as simple as it seems. What matters is the impact that this work generated. There is always the possibility of making a difference, I was prepared for all this. I used as a base some photos of Cristiano Ronaldo that I found on the internet, nothing specific. I put the photos next to me and started working on the bust.”

“Cristiano saw the photos that his brother sent him,” Santos said. “I was with the brother at Cristiano’s museum in Madeira and from the messages he sent, I could tell that he liked what he saw,” he said. “He only asked for some wrinkles that give him a certain expression in his face when he’s about to laugh to be changed. He said it made him look older and asked for it to be thinned out a bit to make it smoother and more jovial. But they gave it the go-ahead; they liked what they saw.”

Unfortunately, any resemblance between the superstar and the statue was questionable, and social media was quick to call out the lack of similarities. The Football Ramble called Cristiano’s bronzed face “a new horror movie trope” and Photoshopped his image into some spooky scenes.